Working on the Captain Hawklin adventures, a New Pulp hero written by Charles F. Millhouse, I am now up to the seventh novel: Captain Hawklin and the Lost Land.
Published in 2020, it is set in September 1935. The last few novels have been jumping around, and while this one is set between The Underwater Menace and The Shadow Men, I would recommend that you have read The Monster Island, as the events of that work lead to this one.
So who is Captain Hawklin? He was a World War I fighter pilot, now is an inventor and adventurer, rich from his inventions. He lives and works in Crown City, located on the west coast of the United States. His headquarters is located in the main tower of the Hampton Bridge, which he designed and built. To me, he is more like the aviation pulp adventurers like Bill Barnes than Doc Savage.
He doesn’t have a large organization. He is assisted by Hardy Regan Miller and Oscar (Oz) Lyman. While it may seem they form a Ham/Monk dynamic, that’s not so. There is no bickering or the like. Hardy is tall and neat, has been with Hawklin since the War, and is a pilot and mechanic. Oz is short and stout, and war veteran but now a pacifist and used to work for Frank Buck.
As we kick off the story, we find Hawklin visiting Jonathan Odenthal in a convalescent home. Jonathan is actually in his 30s, but due to a strange mystical object found at Monster Island, has been aged to his 80s. His father, Maximillian, forced Hawklin and friends to go to the island and obtain the “Time of the Gods” to help his son, but instead it lead to the destruction of the island and the death of his daughter and himself. With his father dead, and no way to prove Jonathan is Maximillian’s son, Hawklin decided to take care of him.
But there seems to be others interested in Jonathan. Soon a group of the Kibo Brotherhood, a group of South China Seas pirates employed by Maximillian attack and take Jonathan, which points back to London. Hawkling and team head there to rescue him.
But things become complex when in London they run into the pirates, but also two others. One is Desa Wintergreen, widow of Orman Wintergreen who was killed in The Underwater Menace, and love interest of Hawlin. The other is Amelia Earhart. Both have a connection with someone known as “Overlord,” who has been having Earhart fly supplies into northwest India near the Thar desert. So they head there.
Soon they find out who Overlord is as they discover a lost land in the Thar desert that also has a mystical object like Monster Island had. Will Jonathan be restored to his normal age? Will Hawklin and associates be able to get out of this unscathed? Read it and find out.
This is another good work. The next volume, Ghost Army is now out and hope to read and review, and another work is coming next year. So far everything has been set in the 1930s, so I wonder if we will move into the 1940s or not. Regardless this is an enjoyable series. I plan on getting the next ones in the series.
